Now that the plague has been "cured" and the threat has ended, I thought a good writeup of our zombie shenanigans last night was in order.

It all started on Thursday with infected boxes in Booty Bay. Clicking on the boxes gave you a disease debuff: "You Are Infected". If the disease was not cleansed within ten minutes, you became a zombie. Zombies are an entirely different faction capable of attacking most NPCs and Players and intern infecting them with the disease. Continued attacks by zombies lowered the debuff by 10%. If ten zombies hit you at once, you would be instantly converted.

Thursday night The Argent Dawn became aware of the infection and dispatched healers to all major cities.

On Friday the Conspicuous Crates showed up in all major cities. Plagued roaches began to appear in all capital cities. Killing the roach infected you with the disease. Plagued residents also began appearing outside city gates. That evening, several of the Argent Dawn healers went missing and the debuff was lowered to five minutes.

Saturday the debuff went to two minutes, as the scourge invasion began. Ziggurats appeared over all major cities and started attacking selected zones around the world. The Argent Dawn announced a new threat in Karazhan, an event boss in a previously unavailable section of the castle.

Sunday morning residents woke up to a debuff that only lasted 60 seconds. Most of the argent healers has vanished and things quickly began to get out of hand. Sunday afternoon the Agent Dawn announced that Grand Apothecary Putress and Bishop Lazari are working on a cure and were making great progress. By this point capital cities were all in a state of chaos. Zombies roamed the streets freely and most NPCs were dead. Attempts to use the bank or auction house were fruitless. This is where our story begins.

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It all began when Joe got infected in goldshire. After causing some mayhem, he trudged over to Westfall, where Omar and myself met up with him. After completely decimating Westfall, the three of us made our way through Duskwood, turning every NPC and occasional player that we met along the way. At Darkshire, we discovered that every NPC you attacked also spawned a guard. By the time we were finished, all the buildings were teaming with zombies. We then moved on to Redridge and did the same. The QQing in general chat was glorious. Then a 70 mage showed up and ended our killing spree.

This is when we decided to expand this operation. We quickly gained followers from the guild, and all met up in Shattrath. Since zombies were able to use ALL the portals, we decided to hit Orgimmar first. While waiting for everyone to meet up, we turned every innocent hordie that came through the portal, often before they could even take five steps. We built a small army and ventured out into the city.

Alas, Mages and un-turnable flightmaster pets were the death of us, but not before we managed to take over the Orgimmar bank. The same fate befell us in Undercity, so it was decided to go back to tormenting smaller towns.

We regrouped in Stormwind, our number having grown to 15, before getting newly infected and porting to Theramore. In Theramore we discovered that the flight master pets were indeed killable if we all stacked up on them. We also discovered that the zombie NPCs love the training dummies. And why shouldn't they, you get health back for attacking them! I also learned first hand that Jaina hits very very hard, after she one-shot me.

Following the destruction of Theramore, we proceeded to carve a path of destructions through Duskwallow Marsh and down into the Barrens. Along the way we came upon a hunter with his back to us. He must have heard us lurching up the road, because he turned around just in time to be set upon, but not before leaping backwards in fright. He was turned most quickly, and the entire raid was shedding tears of laughter.

The trek through the Barrens took a very long time, with the entire raid having to stop often to have vomit parties and heal ourselves back up. Multiple times we met upon riders on the road, most of which failed to react in time to save their lives. One such man became caught in our spit and was left to only respond "FUCK!"

Many players and NPCs fell to our scourge once we made it to the crossroads. The entire town was converted, leaving packs of roaming zombies who set upon any one who landed in the town. I lamented on days before The Burning Crusade, when raids on crossroads were a daily occurrence. These new players have it so easy.

Next we turned our eyes upon Ratchet, and it's seaway to Booty Bay. Along the way, a 70 Troll Hunter stalked us and attempted to pick off any stragglers. Strength in numbers became our motto. Ratchet fell swiftly, and we made our way down the dock. Joe hatched a plan to hide out on the boat and surprise riders, but this was ruined when we discovered that our vomit could not be used inside the captain's quarters. Forward we went to Booty Bay. A fitting place to end, given that it was the original source of the contamination.

Booty Bay has many NPCs, and every one you attack spawns another two guards, all of which were swiftly turned. The entire town was quickly inundated with our kind. So many that it became hard to find each other in the undead swarm. While attempting to convert the gnome engineer, Faltov and myself discovered that zombies can use the engineering portals when we both found ourselves in Gnomeragon's Train Station. Two explosions, a spirit res and a portal found us back in Stormwind, where we were quickly setupon by the two dozen zombies that had become trapped in the mage tower. We took a flight back down to Booty Bay and continued the rampage.

Three hours we spent as zombies before getting tired of it. Our mayhem concluded with us shambling out of Booty Bay to the graveyard and ending our lives.

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The next morning the Argent Dawn announced that a cure had been found. By noon (PST) on Monday the plague had been eliminated. It took two days for the zombie corpses to completely disappear from cities. The scourge invasion continues, but the real meat of this event has come and gone.

These are just some of the memorable moments of the zombie plague of 2008. I'm sure the rest of you have more to relate. Omar has several times related his experience with getting locked inside Champions Hall when the NPC that controls the door was killed.

I've been playing this game for years now. I've seen many events come and go, but never one that affected the realms in such a strange and powerful way. I debated on participation in this event for a few days before actually commiting to it, and the laughter, fun, and hilarity I shared with my friends was amazing. No less then FOUR times, tears streamed down my face while I struggled to understand muffled words in vent... barely coherent from 5 people roaring with laughter and trying to talk at the same time. I went to bed shortly after, emotionally exhausted and thouroughly satisfied.
The very next day, the event ended. Great timing.

In the weeks to come, the game will change.
In the months to come, the guild will change.
Jobs, school, children.... Too many times have I said goodbye to a friend I've never even met, as real life and new interests came along. I cherish these little moments we share together.

I hope some of you do too. :)

-Joe

I made a few changes to my original post to make it more clear what happened to people who might have missed the event entirely.

I also want to point out that this is a pivotal story element for the next expansion. There is a quest line that starts at the deathgate of ice crown citadel which includes a cutscene showing the events that took place there. In this cut scene, a newly designed version of the zombie plague is unleashed on soldiers of the alliance and horde alike. The quest chain will eventually lead you to the discovery that Grand Apothecary Putress has betrayed the horde and staged a coup using the very same plague he cured.

Remember this event, it's some pretty awesome lore.